Month: July 2016

Happiest of Tuesdays to you EveryBUDDY! I hope today finds you doing the best you can with what you have. Sometimes that’s all we can do. The best that we can. Sometimes not even that. Sometimes we can’t even give it our all. There are days we can only give it our “some”. And the perfectionist in me is learning to be okay with that. I am very blessed in that I married a man who is perfectly okay if the house is not spotless every day. I do NOT have to look like a supermodel when I roll out of the bed in the mornings. ( Thank the Good Lord above. ) He met me when I was already very ill , and married me anyway. Needless to say it pretty much all went downhill from there. If angels walk among us, I’m pretty sure he hides his under his grease stained overalls. I read very frequently a question that gets asked on my lupus page, from many of my followers, who are just beginning their journeys with this insidious disease, the question I most dread hearing. “Does it get better?” They can usually mean a few things by this. Sometimes they mean the treatment they receive from friends and family members. As in , “Does the treatment from them get better? Will they understand? Will they be more compassionate and helpful?” I wish I could say yes. But mostly , sadly, the answer is “No.” People , in large part, don’t “Get it” unless they GET IT , and that is something we don’t really wish on anyone. Sometimes they mean , “Will my illness get better?” And the answer to that is a resounding “No. ” as well. Oh how I wish I could say, “Oh yes! The doctors are so helpful. The treatments are wonderful. And the support is great. You’ll be back to yourself in no time. ” But it’s just not true. The best I can wish for them is a period of “remission” a short respite of ease . Now for those of you reading this thinking, “Well aren’t you being a Debbie Downer today??” I don’t mean it to be! I really mean it to be positive, so that when you see someone WITH a disease like we have , you will TRULY understand how HARD we fight to STAY positive. We must make up our own minds EVERY SINGLE DAY that we are going to live to see above the trees. EVERY minute to smile through horrible pain. Our bodies literally hate us. And no amount of King’s Men can put our Humpty Dumpty’s back together again. So we must make the best go of it that we can, and oil our flying machines. If we seem triumphant over some small thing, please remember that maybe even walking down the hall to our bedroom was like a 10K . Standing long enough to cook spaghetti was like a marathon. Taking one of our meds off our list , is relative to soaring over Everest. These are the measures we count our lives by. So please. Don’t take offense if we don’t seem like “our old selves”. It’s been a long , long time since some of us even remember what that was like. Smile with us in the now. You don’t have to “HAVE IT ” to “GET IT” 🙂 Our bodies might seem to be falling apart, but our spirits are still the same on the inside. The wings might be bent, but not broken, at least, not for long. Come fly with us.

A million dollars. Say someone walks up to you and just gives you a million dollars . No strings attached. They don’t want anything from you, you don’t have to do anything for it, they don’t need anything from you, they just walk up to you , hand it to you , and walk away. What would you buy? Do you immediately know? Do you have a list? It’s funny isn’t it? Suddenly you have all this money , it’s yours just to blow ! I’ve had this very scenario in my head a dozen times. And you know what? I can’t think of a SINGLE thing I’d rush out and buy. Not one.It just suddenly doesn’t seem all that important anymore. My home is paid for. It might not be what anyone else would call a mansion , but I’ve never cared about that. The land it sits on belonged to my Pappaw , who thought it the most beautiful spot of land in the world, so beautiful that he died here, which makes it worth more than money to me. My van is paid for. It’s not new, but it goes up and down the road. That’s what cars are supposed to do , right? Take you up and down the highway? I’ve got clothes to keep me warm, clothes to keep me cool , blankets to cover up the beds, food in the icebox, a couple of old dogs to bark if company comes. My Momma and Daddy are still living, right next door.Some things money just can’t buy. There’s no price tag you can attach. To happiness. To the people you find it with. Or the memories you made with them. I find it funny sometimes to see all those people in the magazines and on the television shows talking about how their houses cost more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes. More money than our entire state budgets even. Then you read that they get divorced, remarried, and all the unhappiness that follows them. You wonder if maybe they wouldn’t be a little better to follow the advice of John Anderson in that old song “Black Sheep”.

My daddy was a brakeman on a highball traveling train
Mama she raised four little children and the family had a good name
And papa and mama wanted all for us they never had
Big brother little brother sister too none of them turned out half bad
‘Cept me I’m the black sheep of the family

Big brother went to college and became a doctor man
I guess he makes about a million dollars a year off the folks on insurance plans
He’s got a big long Mercedes Benz and a house overlooking the town
He sits in his Jacuzzi and he watches the sun go down
And he feels real sorry for me, I’m the black sheep of the family

Yeah I drive me a big ol’ semi truck I’m makin’ payments on a two room shack
My wife she waits on tables and at night she rubs my back
And I tell her what my papa said to my mama when he got off the highball train
Wake me up early be good to my dogs and teach my children to pray

Little sister married a banker yeah he owns a country club
He bought her a big ol’ racing horse and a funky lookin’ little dog
He buys her big rings and diamonds and a brand new Japanese yacht
Yeah, they like to get together and talk about all the things they’ve got
But they never mention me, naw, I’m the black sheep of the family

Did you just ever have one of those months where it all seemed to pile up on you ? The news , the negativity , the gossip, the baleful oil of the sheer sliminess piling up in wave upon wave until it just seems determined to pull you under the weight of it? That’s what it seemed like this last month. So much so that I turned off my FB , my Twitter, my blog, and all my communications. That’s not all that new of a step for me. I have been known to go off-grid for as long as two years without even a television. When my husband and I got married we owned no computer, no television, no telephone, no washer or dryer, and lived 10 miles from the largest chain store. Lest you think I was some sort of a hermit, I worked at a library, had lots of friends, enjoyed chatting with certain people, and not just with “conspiracy nuts”. But anywho, I digress. It’s 2016 now, and apparently in this century it’s considered en vogue to have a certain number of such kooky friends. There however seems to be a pallor hanging over the universe these days. If you so much as even dare to breathe a smile in someone’s direction it is deemed a hostile action. I ventured forth into town to do my weekly shopping and it was as if I had forayed into a war zone. “How dare I smile in the general area of the shoppers in the aisle I was on?!?” It was as if I had thrown poison darts in the path of their cart! “What right had I to be happy?!? What reason had I to be so cheerful in the store for crying out loud?” HMMPPH! It was unseemingly. I don’t know why it bothers me so badly . Why do I want so much for the world to be a positive place? Sometimes I swear it is a losing battle, and I wonder if people have made it their own personal mission to dampen as many people’s moods as possible while out and about on their daily jaunt. Well, I hereby declare that I REFUSE TO LOSE! THAT’S RIGHT, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST! I am making it my own personal mission to get a smile from each person I pass. You will not dampen my mood. You will not rain on my parade, and you will not squash my happiness. So, if you take offense at my smile, I feel genuinely sorry for you. I hate that you are having a bad day, and I hate that things are not working out well for you. But I am going to smile just the same. That is my philosophy for today, my philosophy for tomorrow and for all the tomorrows from now on! So hopefully I am leaving you with a little bit of my smile for today, and maybe you can carry it with you for the rest of today !